Round One goes to
Wakely.
I can make every excuse
in the world for my poor performance, but the biggest factor was my lack
of preparation.
I just completed a full
marathon 6 weeks earlier with a time of 4:15 and I had relaxed my
training after that event. Between
that marathon and Wakely, I only ran about 30 miles of trails and those
were mainly flat. I had no
illusions of finishing towards the front of the field, but I naively
thought that my marathon training would be enough to pull me through in
8 hours or so.
As far as the race
itself goes, I started out fine. For
the first 8-10 miles everything was going great.
I was running with a group of runners that included Rick Cronise.
Right around the 9 mile
mark, my back started giving me problems.
I think it was because I was not used to carrying a Lumbar pack
with so much weight in it. Also,
my toes were starting to hurt from smashing into rocks and roots.
I think I need to look into upgrading my trail shoes from the $39
jobs I got at Dicks.
I decided to let
Rick’s group go on ahead. At
this point I started walking both the uphills (to save energy) and the
downhills (because my toes hurt). I
was only jogging on the level portions.
Over the next 10 miles
everyone else passed me. About
mile 20 I was passed by the last two runners.
I tried to stay with them for a while but then I slowly fell
behind. By then my sprit was
broken and I walked the last 10 miles until I got to the road.
During these last 10 miles I kept on looking back because I had
mistakenly thought that the Sweep was still behind me.
I did not realize that the Sweep was the guy with the polls who
passed me about mile 13.
Around mile 22, it
started down pouring just about the time that I reached a lean-to with a
couple of hikers. I hung out
with them for awhile until the worst of it passed.
They offered me some water & food, but I declined.
I was not sure if accepting help from outsiders would result in a
DQ.
When I finally got to
the road it was a welcome sight. I
jogged the last mile or so with my buddy Rob (who came back to check on
me).
In summary, I don’t
like getting my @$$ kicked, so I will definitely run this event again,
although it may not be next year. I
will train much harder and smarter and I should benefit from the
experience of knowing what to expect.
Round Two will go to me.
